


Growing Better

by A_Candle_For_Sherlock, Tyrograph



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 6000 Years of Slow Burn (Good Omens), Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Crowley the Starmaker, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Gardening as a metaphor for recovery, M/M, Shouting as a substitute for therapy, South Downs Cottage (Good Omens), and for love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:07:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25228804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Candle_For_Sherlock/pseuds/A_Candle_For_Sherlock, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyrograph/pseuds/Tyrograph
Summary: Crowley learns how to say what he means, and grow something good.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 107
Kudos: 178
Collections: Good Omens Mini Bang





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sussexbound (SamanthaLenore)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SamanthaLenore/gifts), [OldShrewsburyian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldShrewsburyian/gifts).



> This fic was written with love for two of my favorite writers: for OldShrewsburyian, who writes the most human things with a wonderful blend of reverence and irreverence, and whose insight and kindness make our corner of fandom better; and for Sussexbound, who adds beauty to our online spaces, and writes stories that heal with their honesty; the depth of love you gave your Aziraphale and Crowley has helped mine find theirs. Thank you!
> 
> And enormous thanks to my co-creator, Tyrograph, whose illustrations brought life and love to my Crowley, as well as fantastic style. Thanks too to my betas Amethyst and Anthony--you helped our story sing!

When the night sky is clear above the Downs, it looks endless—an eternity of light over the hills. An outpouring of joy he could cup in his hands. He remembers the glow of creation under his skin, the heat of the heavenly watchflames; his fingers burn with phantom fire.

Sometimes, late at night, when he is restless—when Aziraphale is tucked up in their study, buried in a book, or making cocoa in the kitchen, domestic and warm and content—Crowley goes out alone into the garden, and lays down on the cool earth, and looks up. The blaze of glory washes over him; the light of dying stars rolls over Earth-sky like the waves rolling out from a ship slipping under. He remembers vertigo, and depth and height merging into one around him, unguided by any gravity, and the light that had poured from his hands. 

After a while he gets up, feeling the warm sturdy ground upholding him; goes to stand under the fruit-heavy trees and smell the new buds. Opens his palms to the weight of the apples, finds one that falls willingly off the stem into his still-shaky grasp. Bites in, and welcomes the earthbound taste of it. There isn’t any going back. He has changed. He used to think he was changeless as the hosts of Heaven, though with less self-satisfaction in the deal—was bound to being Crawley, the tempter, nothing more or less, for the rest of an interminable eternity. It was the way his fate had been presented to him. He’d learned better, since.

It had begun, as it would end, in a garden.

He'd always wanted to go back: see if the wall had crumbled, if the desert had crept in, if any of the green had survived the years. Most of the time it felt far away; farther by the century. And then—the scent of fresh-turned earth, the glad song of a bird flung out into the morning, spring sunlight falling across a stone wall, and he’d remember Eden. It hadn’t been home, not for him; nobody had welcomed him in or made him comfortable. He hadn’t belonged there, in Paradise, but he'd crept in and crawled around it unnoticed amidst the other beasts. No one had ever accused him of the part he'd played. He'd slithered away, and there had been no consequences, nothing to tie him to it or force him to remember. But—Eden! Legend. The beginning of the beginning of everything. It stayed with you, having been there. It made you look for it around corners, sometimes—that hush at the dawn of the world. 

He'd been into a few walled gardens in search of it over the centuries; behind palaces of zamindars and inside villas of generals, and in orchards rising across farmers’ fields. They felt familiar. They were places to steal a bite, a thought, a moment for a conversation tending toward mischief. They were quiet, and private; they weren’t paradise, but sometimes they smelled like it. They were uncanny, how they warmed and welcomed you when someone else walked them with you—how they made you feel the silence when no one had let you in, but anyone might be watching over the wall.

He'd never had a place to call his own—a room at an inn, yes, or a bed in a longhouse, a bunk aboard ship, but always on the way to somewhere. He'd never tended land. The first time he brought something growing back with him, he'd been south of the Horn, passing through Meru's forests, and he'd been thinking of Aziraphale; how he would adore the soft, round mangoes that grew behind the houses, how he'd exclaim over the taste of them, the weight of them, the sweet, heavy fragrance, the golden juice that dripped between your fingers when you cradled the treasure and took a bite. He’d purchased a sapling, a little slip clinging to the rich red earth, wrapped it in his traveling cloak and carried it on shipboard, headed for England. He’d thought he could grow it there, in some unused corner; make it bloom and bear fruit, and surprise Aziraphale. It was very good, surprising him. Aziraphale made a secret art of enjoyment, magicking startling happiness up out of everyday things.

The mango plant had died. The cold of England had taken it by surprise, and Crowley hadn’t thought to keep an eye on it; he’d trusted its will to live. Ten days later it had been brown and limp.

He hadn’t tried again for two centuries. He’d established himself in London, seen Aziraphale’s shop up and running (so to speak; it sold no books, which stretched the standard definition of a shop), lost a good while to a long nap after they disagreed on what exactly they were doing there (“fraternising,” indeed), and found he was glad to have woken when Aziraphale came round to his point of view after all. He’d bought a car, gotten into the art scene, learned to dance. He wouldn’t have said he’d settled down, exactly; but restlessness didn’t drive him round continents any more. It pushed him out into the city, instead, to see what the people were up to now. The seventies were a do-something decade. The sheer verve of the human energy got into him, got him worked up and hungry for a change. He found himself inspired to get a flat of his own, a big, new place on a sparkling new row. It made him feel like he was part of something happening. He’d filled it with shiny glass and marble, with imposing statuary, with the latest tech. If Aziraphale was really going to stick around, so would he, and he’d do it in style.

And he’d bought a plant. It was a fern—just a fern, at first, sitting in the corner of his sharp new office, greening up the place. People bought ferns. Crowley bought ferns, now. Crowley had a place of his own, and an image to uphold, and he wasn’t about to leave the done thing undone. Then the fern had developed a wilt, as he’d been half-expecting, the demise of the mango tree somewhere in the back of his mind; and he’d put it away in the unused room at the east wall, to die alone, since it was clearly done with him; but it had unexpectedly sprung back to life in the sunlight that filled that room every sunrise while he lay buried in his silk sheets, sleeping off the ill deeds (or the ice cream and Golden Girls binge, or the Ritz dinner and the angelic chat session) of the night before. 

“Huh,” said Crowley to the now thriving fern, and had gone and bought another. 

Then, of course, he’d been listening to talk radio on LBC, the brand-new citywide station, good for white noise while he drove and the occasional spark of inspiration toward petty temptation and the means thereof; but this time the host had suggested that people should talk to their plants.

Well, he’d never tried that. He hadn’t talked to the mango sprout, and he’d not said a word to the fern. Clearly they’d taken that as evidence he simply didn’t care what they did; and maybe he hadn’t been paying the attention they required. He could give them a minute’s motivation—he could let them know what was expected, and he could do it well. He’d been in on enough Hellishly memorable motivational meetings in his time. 

(He’d wondered, sometimes, if that had changed, in Heaven—the motivation. It hadn’t been exactly evident when he’d been there. Almost left to do as they pleased, they’d been, and few boundaries given. He’d thought he was free. No one had said, “If you push just a little too far, here, you’ll run out of grace.” No one had mentioned—Well. Hell was much clearer with its expectations. And Aziraphale hadn’t seemed to have much trouble with Heaven’s vague threats. He never pushed them too far; just enough to keep up a little wiggle room for himself—some personality of his own, apart from Threatening Pleasantness, and some accompanying self-respect. He kept himself room enough for off-the-books dinners and quiet talks with supposed adversaries—room enough for Crowley’s purposes. He could have imagined more, a great deal more, but Aziraphale would never push his luck that far.)

Crowley started with the one fern, but one fern set down in a room by itself looked ridiculous. He bought a spider plant to set next to it; then a fragrant pot of night-blooming jasmine; then a particularly interesting-looking orchid. He felt a little tongue-in-cheek about it: look at Anthony Crowley, bringing home potted plants, like a human would. Domestic, he was. Brightening up the place—he’d be buying throw pillows next. (He did in fact spend twenty minutes in the flea market looking over a pile of pillows made from the odd ends of Turkish carpets, before a burgeoning feeling of absurdity forced him on.) 

Scouting out hodgepodge markets for sprouts would have come to a screeching halt, however, if the plants hadn’t thrived; but they had. They’d loved his east room, they’d loved the sunrise, they’d loved the high-end plant food he brought them and worked in around their roots, chatting to them while he dabbled. They’d seemed to like the chats. It was friendly, on his part; a little casual advice. A mention of approval over a new shoot, a murmur of caution over a dropped leaf. 

He’d never planned to shout. It wasn’t his style; he liked to charm, not intimidate; stay loose and louche and casual. At ease. Not that that was easy. Aziraphale was really much better at taking things as they were. Aziraphale, with all his fuss and pother, lived and let live with joy. It was another reason to spend time in Aziraphale’s comfortable presence—a reason which almost covered the hours they spent debating and delighting over everything and nothing; which stretched through centuries of what he couldn’t have conceded was a fascination. He'd have called it curiosity over a soft-souled angel. An angel who knew what he liked, and went after it, if it wasn’t precisely forbidden. An angel who enjoyed the taste of the world. Aziraphale was a rarity. 

Aziraphale was nothing like the rest of his acquaintance. One night around the mid-eighties Crowley left the angel’s shop past midnight, ambling and sated less on the wine than on the company, stepped into the Bentley and found himself on the hook. Hastur was checking in via Crowley’s radio. First, a grudging relation of the interest Hell took in a recent political breakdown Crowley had implied he had a hand in; then the inevitable grumbling, the pettiness, the pickiness, the sharp implication of how much more Crowley had to do to warrant that kind of approval. Hastur went down a list of the ways he felt Crowley was lagging, added in a few personal observations on the kind of cruelty a real demon would enjoy, and implied his work would be thoroughly audited at the next all-department review if Hastur had his say. He didn’t leave room for the slightest placating little edgewise word. The more he’d gone on, the worse Crowley had felt. He’d arrived at the flat in a state of all-absorbing nausea to find the original fern browning unexpectedly round the fronds. 

He’d begun to tell it what he thought of that, and found himself short of breath; gasping, stammering, astounded that it could have forgotten itself so far as to get _comfortable_. And then he was shouting, at the top of his lungs; howling his disappointment at the fragility of the thing, and the fern shook. Crowley, a little afraid, found a bottomless fury in himself.

It exhausted him; it emptied him out. He’d sputtered and subsided at last under the feeling that he had been a bit absurd, but also right. Obviously right. It had been a long time since he’d felt he’d proved his point—had proved it to a silent receiver, unable to argue. Had had his say. It hadn’t felt good, exactly, but the power of it had taken him by surprise. He’d gone on about his night feeling like the pool of bitterness in his gut had drained a bit; stopped rising up his throat and settled in his stomach. Shouting did something different to him.

It didn’t happen often, after. Just often enough—when Aziraphale was being obtuse, when the day’s mischief was going especially wrong, when Hell had poked its grubby fingers in a few too many of his personal pies, he’d find release in letting it all out at the top of his lungs, informing a hapless sprout how badly it had let him down. It might have felt a bit awful, but no one saw him; no one needed him to justify it. No one could ask him why he cared. In the flat, alone in the dark, he could shout as he liked. 

It had occurred to him once to wonder whether Aziraphale had ever deigned to raise his voice—at an unexpectedly mildewing book, maybe, or a poorly-warmed cocoa cup. Certainly he seemed to have ire enough for Crowley: scandalized righteousness, or real frustration, especially when he was actually frightened by what Crowley was asking. But he couldn’t imagine Aziraphale furious. Concerned, offended, imperious, but never past decorum. If he could see Crowley so unhinged, would he be grieved? Or just resigned, expecting no better from him? Aziraphale was so flappable and yet so immovable in the end. Crowley had never understood him; never anticipated him; always wanted more time with him. Had never had enough. 

And then, ten years before Armageddon, the Arrangement turned overnight into an actual conspiracy. They were raising the Antichrist. They were accomplices, they were aligned at last, they were up to their necks in it together. At last he had Aziraphale always there, at a practical arms’-length. Almost had enough of him—enough to begin to guess precisely what would make him laugh aloud, what would fluster him, what would bring a fond smile to his face as he listened. Almost enough to think he had him right where he wanted him. (Where did he want him? Surely he didn't have to say it. Surely they understood each other, now.)

Aziraphale tended the garden; Crowley hadn’t had to consider the plants, and never felt the need to tell them off. Crowley raised the boy, and did it cautiously; no shouting, no swearing, and no need for perfection. He wasn’t bringing up an ideal child. He needed a human boy, sullen, honest, bored and hopeful, and ordinary. He wanted to see the boy keep on exactly as he was. He wanted to forget anything else could ever be required of them. He walked with Aziraphale in the cool of the evening in Berkeley Square, and enjoyed it so much that he almost expected to get away with it; so of course it all fell apart. 

Crowley had demanded nothing of the world, except to let him live in it. He'd never expected more: it was Aziraphale who'd stood unarmed under a broken sky, his wing stretched out over an enemy, and expected the world to yield to the necessity of kindness. And the world had yielded to him. Crowley had rather relied on that. He’d thought he could hold off the rest; could keep Hell off their scent indefinitely, if Aziraphale could keep working his will on the world, making space in it for them—making it a place worth living in. 

He'd wanted to live in it. He'd lost Heaven, and landed in Hell, and crawled out of it onto the new Earth burnt to the bone, and then he'd found joy there. He'd never named it. He'd never said the words to the angel, or to anything he'd cared for; hadn't even whispered them to himself. As though he'd smuggled his heart out of Heaven, and had to keep it quiet, so they could never find it. As though they couldn't guess it if he never said "I love—".

Standing in a burning bookshop, shouting his heart out, Crowley found his anger swallowed up at last in something implacable, larger than himself. Saying nothing had saved nothing. The End had always been coming. He cursed them all, anyway, the whole world, and Above and Below. But the last of his fury emptied itself out unheard and left him hollow, soaked in bile and sadness. Crowley stumbled out of the bookshop alone with no anger left, nor any fear. No angel to salvage something livable for; nowhere left for his love to go. Crowley went and found himself a little pub and started drinking.

In the Garden, the humans hadn’t wept when they were banished, but the angel had. He’d stood staring out over the desert long after Adam and Eve had vanished into the gathering dark, and he might have thought no one would notice his tears, while the rain kept falling; but he had an awfully obvious face. There had been nothing left for Aziraphale to guard; nothing more he could do to defend them. But he’d still stood motionless over the empty Eastern Gate, a principality over a fallen post, waiting out the storm. Crowley had waited with him, knowing there was nothing to be done.

Crowley sat at a sorry little table with his head in his hands and considered the irretrievable, and cried. 

Except, of course, then the irretrievable was retrieved. Aziraphale came back, more or less; intangibly, to begin with. There seemed little chance of a full re-corporation then, let alone any future for them; Crowley thought later that it was less hope and more the relief of recklessness that compelled him toward Tadfield. Having a lost cause left to fight felt much better than having nothing left to do at all. He hadn’t expected the world to make space any more for Aziraphale’s mercy, not at the end of things. He hadn’t guessed they could hold the post together; he’d only thought they should end as they began, the two of them giving humanity the chance it had a right to. He hadn’t wanted Aziraphale standing in the storm alone.

He hadn’t expected to win. A reprieve, not a victory, of course; they were in a world of trouble, but there was more time. They’d won time. Sitting on a bus on its way back to London, Crowley considered all of the things he could do with the time that he had. He’d asked Aziraphale back to his place, after. He’d wanted him to rest. Aziraphale had said yes: yes to the night, yes to their own side. Yes—and as they boarded the bus he’d reached for Crowley’s hand. Crowley clung to it and concentrated on breathing: friends again, then. And running off together, after all. They couldn’t run far. How long since he’d last touched the angel? How long did they have, till they were caught? 

Upstairs, in the flat, Aziraphale had looked small: softened and weary, unexpectedly shy. He stood silent in the dim front room while Crowley strode through the flat, tense; but there was no sign of life in the shadows, occult or otherwise. They were alone. 

It had been hard to imagine, on the ride down, how they could begin to unwind and retie the tangled threads of their understanding. Clearly they’d been unsnarled some: the two of them were undoubtably on their own side, now, after all. But faced with an angel actually in his flat, and very much at his mercy, he found himself demanding, “What did you mean when you said you forgave me?” 

Aziraphale blinked at him. “Well, I meant—I wanted you to know I didn’t hold it against you. Your lack of faith. You didn’t believe in the Plan, or—or in me. I had thought you could still be one of us—of them. The angels. But—Crowley, you know I was wrong. I don’t want to be one of them any more.”

“You don’t?”

“I don’t. I don’t like them. I like you better—better than anyone.”

Crowley was stunned into silence; tried several times for words, and could find none, though Aziraphale waited patiently through all the sounds he made. What he finally came up with was, “Sometimes I scream at my plants. When they get spots, or—or drop a leaf.”

“At—your plants.”

“Yes. It’s ridiculous. I get so angry. I get—I’m not stupid enough for Hell, but sometimes I’m like them. Sometimes I want to hurt something. Sometimes I try to show people up for the worst they are.”

“I know.” Aziraphale was inching nearer. He didn’t look afraid. 

“Doesn’t that worry you?”

“Well, I worry me sometimes, too.” 

“I can’t see why.”

“I know.” He was smiling at Crowley, so gently.

It made Crowley admit, “I do want you with me, Angel, if you want to be. I want you. I’ve been wanting you.”

“Oh, my _dear_ boy.” The warmth in his voice burned. Crowley blanched, and closed his eyes.

“Stay with me. However long we’ve got. I—can love you. If you’ll let me.”

“Let you! As if I wouldn’t! I mean—” He was close enough now for Crowley to hear the tremble in his breath. Crowley looked up: he was holding out his hands. “I mean to say, please,” he said, and his eyes were full of tears, but shining, “love me, dear.”

The sharing of souls is an act of love, among angels. It hadn't been rare, when he'd been one of them; but the idea of crossing over between bodies had never occurred to anyone, as far as Crowley knew. Had Agnes not suggested it, he wouldn’t have dared; he’d have fought anyone for Aziraphale, any time, in the ordinary way, but grandly defiant acts of metaphysical rebellion had been (he thought) more the angel’s thing. The principality who could give up his sword and his assignment on the simple feeling that it might give his charges a decent chance— _he_ would do something like this, Crowley thought, staring into his own face the next morning, lit by Aziraphale’s most determined smile. It was more than he’d ever thought he’d do, walking back into Heaven willingly, in someone else’s defense. But for Aziraphale—and knowing that Aziraphale would stride into Hell for him, in return—

He does love me, Crowley thought, and stepped out the door with something like hope in his heart.

Later, waking bound and aching in the midst of a Heaven he didn’t recognize—no songs, no stars—Crowley was astounded at the pure ugliness of it. It was no more comforting than Below—not really, not anymore. The way they looked over him-as-Aziraphale without seeing him at all! With all the courage, the dignity and decency he could muster, they didn’t show a flicker of regret over him. Loveless—they’d become loveless. They didn’t care two feathers about the angel—and at the thought of Aziraphale being _unloved_ a familiar anger rose. Crowley, unbound at last, rose with it: stepped into the spiraling Hellfire, and roared with it. 

There, in the fury, there was joy. It poured out of him wrapped in fire. He’d found what it was for.

“We could plant a garden,” he said later, right into the middle of the story Aziraphale was telling. They’d sat at their table for hours; the people around them had come and gone, and through the window he could see sunset colors filling the sky. “Lavender and roses. Cherry trees. Things bees would like. Somewhere quiet—away from here.” 

“The coast,” Aziraphale said immediately. “Out on the Downs. We could watch the weather coming in from the sea.”

“You’d like that?” 

“You’re surprised?”

“A bit, yes. You’ve always liked the city.” 

“No more than you,” said Aziraphale, with a pointedly amused look up and down him. “You’re not very pastoral.”

“You’re a rare book collector and a foodie,” Crowley countered, failing not to go hot under the look. “I imagine the sushi selection out there isn’t great.” 

“Hm, but there will be fresh fruit, and cream. And open markets, and ancient pubs, and local bakers. Some lovely old books in the shops.” 

“You really do want to go,” Crowley murmured, watching the delight glimmering in the corners of Aziraphale’s eyes, the ease in his smile. He looked like he’d never been on guard in his life. He looked glad.

“I’d love to go, with you,” said Aziraphale, and his small, soft hand reached out and laid itself protectively over Crowley’s. “Let’s plant a garden.”

Crowley left the throne behind, but packed his records; he thought he might be able to bring the angel round to Bob Dylan over the summer nights. Maybe even get up the courage to show him The Velvet Underground. He boxed up his Golden Girls DVDs, his espresso machine, his silk pajamas, and half a dozen astronomy texts (Aziraphale didn’t have anything with pictures), and put them in the backseat of the Bentley, and then he went to get the plants.

The flat was silent. Aziraphale was waiting below, having miracled the jumble of the bookshop into the cottage wholesale; Crowley stood alone in the quiet and looked at the room full of growing things. He hadn’t said a word to them in a week. They looked apprehensive, in a green and mindless way.

“You’re doing fine,” he said, and picked up a pot to carry downstairs. “You’ll like it where we’re going. I’ll put you in the kitchen—there’s plenty of light in it. And you’ll see a lot of my angel.”

Down near the coast, the horizon grew broad and open; the roads had emptied out miles back, and now the hum of the wheels on the road was the only sound. The afterlight lay across the grass like grace.

“Oh, look,” said Aziraphale, looking east, “there—the first star.”

“We’ll be able to see them better, out here,” said Crowley. “I imagine they’ll look more like they used to before London was a thing.”

“Let’s sit in the garden and watch them come out.”

“Yes,” said Crowley, and something in his voice made Aziraphale reach out and touch his cheek, lingering. Crowley stole little glances at him: Aziraphale was transcendent, limned in the last light, and smiling. He glowed like he had on the wall at the birth of the world.

“I love you so, Anthony Crowley,” said Aziraphale, softly, and then, “Oh,” because they’d crested the hill and the cottage was just coming into view below, “look, we’re home.”

Nothing dark or hostile ever comes onto their land. Nor have the unbearably friendly forces of light shown up. It’s just the two of them, mostly; they go into town for the ambient mortal company often enough, but at home they like it quiet. 

Crowley, coming back through the orchard, soaked in starlight with an apple in his hand, is quiet too. He can feel Aziraphale inside the cottage—can see him in there if he shuts his eyes, a glowing after-image on his second sight; can follow the warmth of him home, orient himself by it from anywhere—a distantly burning aureole round a glad golden heart, like a carefully contained sun. He knows Aziraphale can feel him coming, too. But he gives Crowley time. When Crowley settles himself at last in the back garden with his apple and bites in, the angel opens the kitchen door, spilling lamplight across the yard—stands on the doorstep and waves to him. He waves back. 

Aziraphale steps out, shutting the door so the night reforms round them, moonlight flooding back into the space between. He’s got his house slippers on. He pads across the grass (like a lion, Crowley thinks, with its claws sheathed); says, “Hello, dear,” and lowers himself to the ground to sit and lean his head soft and heavy against Crowley’s bony shoulder. (“It’s not uncomfortable,” he’s said, “it’s you.” Sometimes Crowley still can’t believe what a brazen liar he is.)

Crowley has always had questions, and Aziraphale out of everyone has indulged them the most. It makes him braver, year by year. He says, “How did you know I could love you?” 

“It was the books.”

“Books,” Crowley echoes, baffled.

“You saved them for me. After I’d turned you down. I refused you the one thing you needed me for, and we’d always helped each other, tit for tat. Favor for favor—I thought that was how we worked. But I’d said no to you, and still you came for me; and you had no reason to save my books, but you did it anyway—”

“Of course I did.” He’s grateful the cool moonlight won’t show his blush.

“—and then I knew. No one else would have cared what those books meant to me—no one would have even thought of doing what you did. But you knew I loved them. And you saved them, so I knew you could love me.”

“Huh. Well. Yes. You’re right.”

“Of course I am. How did you know I could love you?”

“When you settled down in London and let me live here too, and liked it? When you told Gabriel how great I was? When you said you’d get used to my name, after a hundred years of nothing? I don’t know, Angel, I kept hoping.”

“Oh, Crowley.”

“No, wait. I knew you could love me when you brought me your thermos. You trusted me over them. You were scared, but you trusted me.” 

“I did. And I was right, wasn’t I.”

Crowley stands, shoves out a steadying hand out to help him up. The moon is rising higher over the rolling downs; the wind moves through the trees in the garden like a living thing, like the wandering presence of something holy.

“Yes,” he admits. “You were. Come back to the house with me. I want to put on some music.”

“Make it something to dance to,” says Aziraphale, and follows him in.


	2. Black and White Drawings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tyro made some gorgeous additional illustrations for the story--added here for readability!

"Gardens were uncanny, how they warmed and welcomed you when someone else walked them with you—how they made you feel the silence when no one had let you in, but anyone might be watching over the wall."

"He’d purchased a sapling, a little slip clinging to the rich red earth."

"Surely he didn't have to say it. Surely they understood each other, now."

"In the Garden, the humans hadn’t wept when they were banished, but the angel had. Crowley sat at the little table and considered the irretrievable, and cried."

"Aziraphale's small, soft hand reached out and laid itself protectively over Crowley's. 'Let's plant a garden.'"

**Author's Note:**

> Crowley was wrong about the sushi in Sussex--there are several nice places. I believe the South Downs area is more modern in a number of ways than Crowley and Aziraphale were picturing it; but, of course, they found exactly the refuge they were imagining there, since they believed in it. 
> 
> It's important that you know that in the picture of Crowley looking over his plant, Tyrograph has drawn for Crowley a beautiful snake fang orchid. They were a joy to work with!


End file.
